Manitowoc’s David Semple believes that Dubai’s market is picking up
David Semple, Manitowoc’s Middle East managing director, says that mobile crane demand is helping to ease “depressed” sales of its tower crane lines.
Through its Potain brand, Manitowoc enjoyed a relatively buoyant 2010 and 2011 as it scored a string of large project deals such as the Princess Noora University development in Saudi Arabia. However Semple explained to CMME at InterMat Middle East that 2012 has proven to be a much tougher year.
Fortunately for Manitowoc, he explained, sales of its Grove cranes have benefited from a shift to projects that suit rough terrain mobile cranes.
“Business overall is challenging for some product lines and quite acceptable for others,” he said. “Our tower crane business is quite depressed because there are a lot left over from the boom years, whereas mobile cranes are going quite well. Mobile cranes need to be replaced after several thousand kilometres, so I think there’s natural renewal of fleets.
He continued: “We’ve noticed some projects are picking up and restarted. Has this translated into tower cranes sales? Not yet. We’re still lacking some of the mega projects that we have in Saudi Arabia.”